


Self-defense by Eliot Spencer

by sylvancat



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 08:12:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylvancat/pseuds/sylvancat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot's musings on the team;  perceptions and coping mechanisms. A character study; may be meta.<br/>the prompt at leverage_flashfic was Self-defense by Eliot Spencer, in 8/11</p><p>Disclaimer; they're not mine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Self-defense by Eliot Spencer

Nate drinks. He lets the world come at him full speed, knowing when it hits that soft fog the booze builds between him and everything else, it’ll slow down enough he’ll have plenty of time to look it over and figure out how to spin it, because he’s Nathan Fucking Ford. And if some shit gets through, well, that’s manageable, too. One more drink and Nate Ford won’t care about shit, or how the world spins. Nate keeps hise shit under control that way.

Sophie says when life hands Sophie Devereux lemons, she just loosens another button on her shirt and convinces life to buy her a shandy instead. Sophie’s a liar. And you believe her , because Sophie’s never more convincing than when she’s lying. Sophie doesn’t defend herself because she doesn't have to. Sophie doesn’t exist, she doesn’t even have a name. No self to defend, that makes her strong. When the shit comes down, Sophie wriggles out of that skin and leaves it behind, and some other Sophie walks away unstained.  
She was never there, never saw shit, didn’t smell it, step in it or wear it. Sophie doesn’t give a damn about the shit she leaves behind. Sophie Devereaux doesn’t have a damn to give, just a lot of shiny old stuff she keeps hidden away and a shiny new self she brings out every day.

 

Parker, well, Parker’s never all there, even when she is, because Parker's a sneak and she hides. Parker’s a face in the window, a shadow on the wall, a noise on the roof. She’s the ghost you wouldn’t tell your best friend about, (if you had one) because she's not all there. Most people don't know when she’s there at all.  
Dropping through the ceiling, sleeping in the vents, walking between the walls. You’ve never really seen Parker, just her big laugh and the loud comments that never quite fit, fingers poking at all the wrong places, curling up comfortable where no normal body would ever want to be. She’ll cartwheel through a window and disappear with anything she wants and you’ll never see her, never know, because she's a great sneak and she hides. When the shit hits the fan Parker just flies away (but there’s never enough of her there to hit anyway).

Hardison, Hardison ought to be dead a hundred times over. Loud, graceless, with an ego the size of his flatscreen. For no reason you can see. No sense of self-preservation, no sense at all. If annoying was an Olympic sport Hardison would be wearing so many gold medals he’d fall flat on his face. Again.  
You think you see him, you know you hear him, and you try to get away from him, because Hardison gets in your face to brag, he's loud, obnoxious, stinks of orange soda, and he never shuts up.  
But after weeks not listening, trying to ignore him, you figured out he doesn’t say a damn thing, and has no more face of his own than the alien on that space opera he’s so fond of. Hardison, the most paranoid geek who ever smeared cheeto powder on a keyboard, owns every electronic doodad ever made and made a few himself, but never had an answering machine because They could use that to listen to him when he’s all alone, and nobody’s ever gonna stick shit to Hardison that way.  
When the shit hits the fan Hardison makes his own doors, walks through the walls and wipes his tracks as he goes,not a whisper or a wisp of orange scent left behind, and even though you wish you didn’t remember him, when you check he was never there.

And then there’s you. You used a hundred names, but you’ve only ever had one very distinctive style. You punch through walls high and wide, you used to leave your signature behind but you don’t anymore because everybody knows who you are. They know what you’ll do, and that’s whatever it takes. You’ve left enough skin behind to fill Sophie’s closet with handbags and shoes, but you always walked out the same man, just carrying a little more shit. After all these years you’re bigger than life.  
You’ve become a Name. You can fly on it, open doors with it, or even hide behind it, because your Name’s bigger than you. You’re not paranoid, because it’s not paranoia when the danger’s real.  
You don’t sleep much and you drink a lot, but you don’t drink like Nate does. The world never softens when you do, and you’d like to spin it all away too, but that’s not how it goes. What you do, you watch better, you think more, you move faster and hit harder than anybody expects. And when the shit hits, Eliot Spencer becomes the fan.


End file.
